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Brain games: Emotiv announces EPOC neuroheadset

March 13, 2008

Imagine a virtual world that you control directly with your thoughts. The color of the sky changes to match your mood. You can lift and move objects by simply willing it to happen. You’re able to manipulate anything you choose without ever lifting a finger.

Sounds like something out of a sci-fi flick, right? Well, it’s not. It will soon become a reality, thanks to Emotiv, a company that develops mind-reading gaming technology.

By Chris Ulicne,

Senior Staff Writer

Imagine a virtual world that you control directly with your thoughts. The color of the sky changes to match your mood. You can lift and move objects by simply willing it to happen. You’re able to manipulate anything you choose without ever lifting a finger.

Sounds like something out of a sci-fi flick, right? Well, it’s not. It will soon become a reality, thanks to Emotiv, a company that develops mind-reading gaming technology.

Every year, new consumer technologies are revealed to the gaming industry at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), and this year Emotiv unveiled the finalized version of their crowning achievement: the EPOC Neuroheadset. One of my favorite websites, www.ign.com, posted a feature article with the details as part of their GDC coverage, which I’ll try to summarize here.

The sleek, super-cool device fits on your head and uses sensors to pick up, analyze, and process your brain waves, then translates them into action in the virtual world on your monitor.

Similar technology has been developed before, but the EPOC is distinguished by the material used to construct its electrodes: it’s specially designed to work while dry, unlike the material used in previous neuroheadsets, which required moisture to function at all.

Emotiv plans to put the device on the market sometime before the end of the year, at an estimated price point of $299. It will be packaged with software specifically designed to showcase its potential, including a chat client that takes advantage of the EPOC’s ability to read facial expressions and a computer game you play using only your mind.

There are plans to develop more gaming software that uses the EPOC, but even more exciting is the potential for creative integration with other technologies. According to an AP report, Emotiv and IBM are teaming up to try to tap into the possibilities.

There have already been plenty of suggestions. What if you could flip between windows or tabs in an internet browser by raising your eyebrows? Skip songs on a playlist with a quick smile (or frown)? Scowl to move files to your recycle bin?

Emotiv’s neuroheadset is just one of a number of innovative products developed in recent years that take human interaction with digital technologies to a new level.

Nintendo’s Wiimote (which has been adapted to uses beyond gaming, like controlling robotic arms); 3DV Systems’ ZCam (the spiritual successor to Nintendo’s gadget, which serves the same purpose without the need for external input devices); microphones that convert speech into text in a word processor; and countless other concepts that have yet to reach the market.

Each year, technology gets better and better at processing the complexities of the human mind. Who knows? Maybe virtual reality is just around the corner.